The benefits of going fare-free on transit. METRO should really look at this. Since the farebox is less than 20% of Metro’s budget, this should be doable, especially if it would dramatically increase ridership and reduce traffic congestion.

“When speaking to detractors of the fare-free system, Litchfield likes to point out the measurable savings as well. The transit agency saves money that would be spent on fare collection, in terms of both staff and equipment (the system has 99 buses, and farebox devices sell in the area of $15,000 each). Advertising costs are down, since Chapel Hill Transit doesn’t have to promote its pass programs, and the system also saves money that would have gone toward low-income ridership assistance. Last but not least, the buses save time because they no longer have to check passes or wait for fare swipes.”

But kudos to Mayor Parker doing a pretty amazing job describing what makes Houston such a great and vibrant city in a pithy two minute CNBC video segment here. She says we have more engineers per capita than any other (major) city in the world. I believe that, but if anybody can point me to the source stats, I’d appreciate it in the comments.

#1 Austin
“Drum roll, please, for this legend in its own mind, a mildly entertaining university town and state capital with fever dreams of greatness, a city whose entire purpose for breathing is to not be like everything else around it. When you’re trying to set yourself apart from a place as large and as bold as Texas, you have to work really, really hard. Which could explain why everyone walks around here looking so stressed. Sprawling Austin is one of those unfortunate places that seems really smashing on paper. And then one ruins things by going. You have now been advised.

Instead, try If your precious snowflake mind can tolerate a little diversity of thought, Houston — our nation’s fourth largest city, if you didn’t know — is currently the place to experience Texas at its most interesting. Sure, this is a city so ugly that sometimes you may be tempted to put a bag over its head, but Houston is also an impressively creative and very fun town, with good museums (the Menil Collection, the Contemporary Arts Museum), plenty of good food — Austin’s own golden boy, Tyson Cole, opened Uchi here recently — good drink (start with Anvil and Hay Merchant), plenty of music and — best of all — fun-loving locals who are generally anything but uptight.”

“While 24,000 people an hour is a lot compared with a single freeway lane carrying 2,000 cars an hour with a rush-hour average of 1.1 persons per car, there is no reason why freeway lanes have to be limited to cars. A freeway lane dedicated to buses is capable of moving 1,200 buses per hour safely spaced six bus lengths apart. If WMATA used 80-seat, double-decker buses such as those used in Las Vegas, that lane could move 96,000 people per hour, without even counting standees.

On reaching downtown, the buses could disperse to various streets, any of which are capable of moving at least 160 buses an hour (40 buses per hour per stop with four designated stops every two blocks). That means directing buses down three or four north-south streets and four east-west streets, allowing most riders to find a stop close to their actual destination.

The Washington DC region could spend tens of billions of dollars and many years building new subway lines that would provide a modest increase in the rail system’s capacity. Or it could spend a small fraction of that amount of money and time on new buses running on high-occupancy toll lanes that would more than double the system’s capacity. Unfortunately, the political momentum created when DC made the mistake of building rail in the first place will probably doom it to doing the former. The result will be a lot of money spent but little congestion relief.”

Finally, in the dark humor department, I snapped this pic of a Rice University parking meter after you’ve given it your credit card to pay for parking upon exiting. It doesn’t actually tell you how many dollars it’s charged you, it just gives you this graphic of the most evil looking smiley face I’ve ever seen, taunting you with “I’ve just charged your credit card an obscene amount, but let’s keep it a secret until you open your credit card bill, shall we?”